Nykytanssi / Contemporary dance
SYKSY / AUTUMN 2023

Kuva: Rikard Nilsson
Linda Blomqvist, Sweden
Dancing with pleasure and precision.
This class focuses on and combines technical exercises that explore alignment, balance, momentum, weight, strength and agility with improvisational tasks that encourages us to be receptive, open and to attune with each other, oneself and the space we inhabit.
We will play and move between form and improvisation – enhancing our physical, intuitive and emotional intelligence. We will strive to do this from a place of togetherness, respect and critical thinking, with a starting point from our own very specific abilities and resources. Not striving to fit a mold but to explore the vast potential that each and one of us has.
This class is meant to prepare you for the day - however it may unfold. And hopefully also inform and inspire new ventures.
Linda Blomqvist born in Stockholm, 1985 is a choreographer and dancer. Her work aims to expand the notion of choreography with a focus on alternative modes of production, process and practice from a speculative viewpoint taking various forms and expressions.
Linda studied dance at The Royal Swedish Ballet School 1995-2004 and at P.A.R.T.S 2008-2010. She's been working with artists such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Mårten Spångberg and Florentina Holtzinger to name a few.
Linda initiated Indigo Dance together with Emma Daniel, Anna Gaiotti and Adriano Wilfert Jensen upon an invitation to curate the "Dance week" at PAF as part of the Summer University 2014. Indigo Dance is a platform for artists with manifestations such as study circles, a festival, tumblr and the publication – The Indigo dance magazine – They come at dawn. These various manifestations aim to find alternative modes of knowledge production and exchange, implying peers teaching peers in the name of curiosity, experimentation and realization of concepts. Indigo Dance holds a space which is supportive and allowing, striving to build a strong discourse around our practice and field. Alongside her dance practice she also practices as a
Doula/birth worker. Linda obtained her Doula certificate from FUR doula education in Stockholm 2018.

Kuva: Mathias Vejerslev
Dorte Bjerre Jensen, Denmark
"You been swimming in gravity since the day you were born. Every cell knows where down is. Easily forgotten. Your mass and the earths mass calling to each other." Steve Paxton
As a dancer, artist, researcher and educator I am interested in our body ́s innate ability to respond physically to the environment, and the surprisingly ways we create relational matrices by composing our bodies in and with space. I wish to propose a practice of Caring with- sensitizing oneself towards gravity. Caring with in the attendance to others, with asymmetry of touch, friction, senses, and smells, caring with inside the unequal, messy and troubled situations. Caring with as deep listening.
"The practice of care creates the condition of being vulnerable to others. A vulnerability that creates space for unpredictable encounters: we are not in control, not even of ourselves… we are thrown into shifting assemblages, which remake us as well as our others." (Anna Tsing)
Caring with- sensitizing oneself towards gravity is about proposing an embodied multisensory affectively and politically targeted way of knowing, grounded in sensitizing oneself to each other and the "more than human" sentience, by asking: what modes of attention and practices of attunement can bring us into responsible relationships?
Gravity is our constant companion, and it is a force we all have in common as humans and non-human on this planet earth. Through playful and challenging guided explorations, we will work with sensing where the direction for down is by: letting gravity inform our bodies. You will get tools to move on your own, and tools for being in physical contact with others. We will practice the art of falling, catching ourself and each other, flying, rolling, sliding, balancing, losing balance, awkwardness, spiraling, weight sharing, counterbalance and the sense of mutuality and being in the unknown.
As an art worker and educator, Dorte Bjerre Jensens work is anchored in an evolving artistic inquiry into multisensory relations of ecological attention through movement, manifested as performance, participatory performative scores, live art installations, lectures, classes and workshops, and writing. Dorte have been practicing, teaching and performing contact improvisation for more than 20 years abroad and in Denmark. Currently also as an external supervisor at The Danish National School of Performing Arts and Lund university.
From 2019-2022, she was a part of the research project Experimenting, Experiencing, Reflecting (EER): between Studio Olafur Eliasson and the Interacting Minds Centre (IMC), Århus university. As part of EER, she performed the piece Sharing Perspectives (SP) at Tate Modern London. SP that is grounded within the practice of contact improvisation and score design, gave a rare insight into the world of the other by embodying another person's perspective. As ways to navigate the pandemic, she developed the performative scores, Greeting Cards (2020), which questioned and redefined the choreographed gesture greeting; and INviteME Online (2021), which invited participants to reconnect to their private spaces, plants, and each other. She publishes these collaborations in both artistic and scientific books and journals.
Her latest work Cluster of Forces, a hybrid between interactive installation and performance investigates everything is in flux, including our ability to survive! We are always already deeply connected to each other and the more-than-human through touch, fragrances and frequencies. It messes with the genius solo-artist and the interdependency of life and work, a feminist-materialist aesthetics of production.
More info:

Kuva: Hanna Råst
Maria Autio
Maria "Mimmu" Autio on pääsääntöisesti Helsingissä toimiva tanssitaiteilija. Maria on valmistunut tanssitaiteen maisteriksi Taideyliopiston Teatterikorkeakoulusta keväällä 2015. Hän on työskennellyt monipuolisesti tanssitaiteen kentällä tanssijana, tanssija-koreografina, tanssin opettajana sekä apulaisrehtorin tehtävissä Vapaalla Tanssikoululla. Maria on myös yksi tanssijalähtöisiä teoksia tuottavan /\/\ /\/\ /\/\-kollektiivin perustajajäsenistä.
"Opetuksessani ominaisia piirteitä ovat keveys, leikkisyys ja avoimuus, jotka resonoivat tunneilla tehtävissä harjoitteissa ja liikemateriaaleissa. Tunneillani keskitytään liikkeelle pääsemiseen, liikkeessä olemiseen ja liikkeen aallon harjalla surffaamiseen. Aloitetaan pelistä tai leikistä, edetään salin poikki erilaisilla harjoitteilla ja lopuksi sidotaan kaikki yhdeksi ihanaksi liikkeen virraksi.
Tuntien aikana yhdessä purettavat materiaalit koostuvat reiteistä ja kudelmista, jotka ovat parhaillaan pinnalla omassa työssäni tanssijana."
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Maria "Mimmu" Autio is a dance artist based in Helsinki. Maria graduated with a master's degree in dance from the University of the Arts in the spring of 2015. Since she has worked versatilely in the field of dance as a dancer, dancer-choreographer, dance teacher and recently as an assistant principal at Vapaa Tanssikoulu. Maria is also a founding member of the /\/\ /\/\ /\/\ collective that produces dancer-oriented works.
"Characteristic features in my teaching are lightness, playfulness, and openness, which resonate in the exercises and movement materials in the classes. During my classes we will focus on getting into motion, being in motion and surfing along with the motion. Classes start with a game or play, continue to different movement fragments across the space and end with weaving everything together into one lovely stream of motion.
The materials that we will unravel together during the classes consist of routes and weaves that I find current and in the focus of my own artistic work as a dancer."

Kuva: Simo Heiskanen
Katri Soini
Katri Soinin tunneilla jäsennetään ja tanssitetaan liikettä ihmisen rakenteesta käsin, kehon valmista järjestystä ymmärtäen, kuulostellen ja siitä inspiroituen. Työskentelyssä kirkastetaan ja syvennetään liikkeen artikulaatiota ja suuntia oman ja jaetun tilan vuorovaikutuksessa. Kehon tunnistamiseen ja tiedostamiseen perustuvan kokemuksen kautta mahdollistetaan sekä itsestä lähtevän että annetun liikkeen todentumista.
Katri Soini (s.1965) on freelance-tanssija ja tanssinopettaja. Tanssitaiteen maisteriksi (Teak 1988) valmistuttuaan hän on työskennellyt yli 30 vuoden ajan useiden eri koreografien kanssa, esiintyen laajalti niin kotimaassa kuin ulkomaillakin. Katri on opettanut nykytanssia alan oppilaitoksissa, festivaaleilla, tanssiryhmissä, organisaatioissa ja yksityiskouluissa. Hänelle on myönnetty 5-vuotinen taiteilija-apuraha neljästi, joista viimeisimpään (2019-2023) kuuluu taiteilijaprofessorin arvonimi.

Kuva: Emilia Kangasluoma
Kati Korosuo
Kati Korosuo on helsinkiläinen tanssitaiteilija, jota kiinnostaa hierarkioita purkavat metodit. Kati on koulutukseltaan tanssitaiteen maisteri (Teak 2011) ja hän on työskennellyt tanssijana ja esiintyjänä lukuisien suomalaisten ja kansainvälisten koreografien teoksissa viimeisen viidentoista vuoden ajan. Kati on myös Toisissa tiloissa -esitystaidekollektiivin ja Höyhentämö-teatteriyhdistyksen jäsen.
Katin aamutunti on suloisen pehmeä ja hurmaavan vauhdikas kehollinen aamunavaus, jossa liikettä johdetaan mielikuvien ja anatomian kautta. Tunneilla liikumme keskeytyksettä yhdessä ohjaajan liikkeen ja sanallisten ohjeiden mukana. Tutkimme oman tanssin synnyttämistä, sen lukemattomia variaatioita ja dynaamisia mahdollisuuksia.
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Kati Korosuo is a Helsinki-based dance artist who is interested in the methods for dissolving hierarchies. Kati has a MA degree in Dance (Teak 2011) and she has worked as a dancer and performer with various Finnish and international choreographers during the past fifteen years. Kati is also a member of the live art collective Other Spaces and Höyhentämö – Pluckhouse theater association.
Kati's morning class is a gently soft and dynamically vivid class, where motion is guidedthrough mental images and references to human anatomy. The lessons consist of non-stop motion guided by the instructor's movements and verbal instructions. The aim is to explore the creation of personal motion, its limitless possibilities and dynamic variations.

Kuva: Tommi Mäntysalo
Akim Bakhtaoui
Akim Bakhtaoui on tanssija-koreografi, joka käy myös nimellä Alpha Extreme. Akim on yksi tunnetuimmista katutanssijoista Suomessa. Hän on monille tuttu ryhmästä Will Funk For Food (WFFF). Akim on katutanssilajien monitaitaja, sekä nykytanssin ammattilainen. Kentällä Bakhtaoui tekee tanssijan töitä, toimii tanssinopettajana, koreografioi, tuomaroi, kilpailee kansainvälisesti sekä toimii DJ:nä kotimaisesti. Akim on valmistunut tanssitaiteen kandidaatiksi keväällä 2019.
Akim on opettajana mukaansatempaava, mutta vaativa. Hän kehittää myös omaa osaamistaan jatkuvasti ja jakaa tieto-taitoaan haastamalla oppilaita sekä itseään. Akimille on tärkeää uuden oppimisen ja hauskuuden yhdistäminen sekä se, että tekee aina parhaansa eikä luovuta. Tunneilla perehdytään lajin estetiikkaan, perusteisiin, tekniikkaan, historiaan, musiikkiin, sekä grooveihin. Koreografioiden lisäksi harjoitellaan liike variaatioita ja kombinaatioita, sekä tutustutaan freestyle/improvisaatio harjoitusten kautta oman tyylin löytämiseen. Tule mukaan ja anna oma panoksesi tunnilla!
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Akim Bakhtaoui is a dancer-choreographer who also goes by the name Alpha Extreme. Akim is one of the most famous street dancers in Finland. He is known to many from the group Will Funk For Food (WFFF). On the field, Bakhtaoui works as a dancer, dance teacher, choreographs, judges, competes internationally and acts as a DJ domestically. Akim has graduated with a bachelor's degree in dance arts in spring 2019.
In the class, we learn the given styles aesthetics, basics, technique, history, music, and grooves. In addition to choreographies, movement variations and combinations, we go deeper in to musicality in dance and get to know how to find our own unique style through freestyle/improvisation exercises.